


the hours

by magdaliny



Series: quiet americans [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Children, Friendship, Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13353171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magdaliny/pseuds/magdaliny
Summary: “Really, it's all right. Reminds me of the time I was savaged by a swan on the wrong side of Parham House's ha-ha when I was eight.”He looks started. “Doesit?”





	the hours

### July 2015

As a general rule Eva isn't a screamer, not anything like her mother or Aunt Milly, both of whom had been blessed with lungs as voluminous as the Mersey, but she manages a good one as she turns the far corner of the cottage and nearly gets her head staved in with one of Carter's mouldering garden gnomes. She tries to take a step back and falls on her arse.

The man wielding the gnome looks a few bats short of a belfry, a few kilos short of healthy, and more to the point, as though he's about to drop dead of fright. He also happens to have excellent reflexes, because he's pulled his swing before Eva's even managed to bring her hands up, and with three small boys at home, Eva'd like to think she's rather quick on the draw when it comes to protecting her face. Through the fog of adrenaline, she manages to notice that he only has the one arm, and where his collar has slipped under his backpack strap, she sees a frightful scar where his shoulder meets his neck. There's a tube safety-pinned to the hem of his shirt.

They stare at one another for a few moments, panting, and then the man says, “Oh god, I'm so sorry, I'm—”

Good lord. He sounds exactly like Great-Uncle Albert, who was shot in the throat at Sari Bair and allegedly spat the bullet back at the Turk who did it, except Great-Uncle Albert had a Lancashire accent thicker than porridge and this specimen is a lot less playful with his vowels.

“It's fine,” Eva says. She pats her chest and grins. “Could've skipped a cuppa this morning, but no harm done.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“Really, it's all right. Reminds me of the time I was savaged by a swan on the wrong side of Parham House's ha-ha when I was eight.”

He looks started. “ _Does_ it?”

“Well, only in the broad strokes,” Eva admits, getting to her feet and brushing leaf matter off her trousers; the left cuff's come un-hemmed again. “The scene might be more complete if the Vicar was on hand with his umbrella to rescue me from a fate worse than death, but he managed to catch pneumonic plague a few years back on a humanitarian mission in Madagascar, so that's out. I suppose if you want to make it authentic you could always invite the young Rector round for Jammie Dodgers—I hear he's a dab hand with a censer. You must be the resident Susan rang me about. James something?”

The resident in question is giving her a look like she's a certifiable nutter who stopped speaking the Queen's English several sentences back, which is impressive, coming as it does from a one-armed man holding a garden gnome.

When he fails to rise to the occasion, she tries a different tack. “Evangeline Blackpool,” she says, sticking out a hand; he'll either have to drop the gnome or any pretence at manners, and at this point she'll consider either a win.

The gnome loses.

“James Smith,” he says, and shakes her hand. “I'm so sorry. I'm jetlagged to hell and I haven't slept since Thursday. Shoulda known better than to let myself out of the house.”

“Quite understandable,” Eva says. “I get the same way during exam season. Sometimes I think Tabby ought to lock me in the attic and throw away the key. Oh,” she adds, noticing that under the far oaks the shed door is open, and belatedly, the trowel on the ground behind him: “Good on you! This mess needs a good turning over. I've done my best, but I'm afraid my talent for gardening only extends to the edible varieties. It'll be nice to have someone around who knows what they're doing.”

“I don't know about that, ma'am,” Mr. Smith says. _Ma'am!_ For god's sake. And people say all Americans are rude. “I'll do my best.”

“That's all any of us can do,” says Eva, neutrally, because anyone who can say a thing like that as gravely as he does is probably going to be all right. “Well, I'll let you get on. Pop by if you dig up any problems—I'm in the big white heap up on the hill, you can't miss it. Just follow the shrieking of the goblin hordes. You don't mind children, do you?” she asks, when he opens his mouth.

“Nope,” he says, and they make their farewells with a socially acceptable level of awkwardness, but as Eva walks back to the house that—after all the years and distance—still feels inexorably haunted, she can't help thinking that for a split-second, just around the eyes, like an exceptionally well-trained horse trying its very best not to bolt into the night, he'd looked absolutely terrified.

 

☆

 

She intends to be social, she really does, but between one thing and another the summer runs away from her, and against all the odds it's _him_ , halfway through August, who manages to drop an envelope through the mail slot without any of the children or the cat noticing. The latter being more concerning, since Silver starts up a malevolent yowling whenever anything larger than a thrush commits the offence of appearing on the property.

 _Ms. Blackpool_ , it says, on the inside of a really rather nice floral card she'll only realize later is handpainted, _I don't know whether this is the accepted method of inviting a lady over, but I've figured out how to make English tea in what I think is the proper way, so if you're free some afternoon this week I'd be glad of the company. Drop by whenever's convenient. Regards, J_.

Well, then.

“I'm queer as a two-bob watch,” Eva says at half four on Wednesday, when Mr. Smith opens the door. “Just getting that out of the way so as to avoid tea turning into,” she sprawls in the doorway and bats her eyelashes at him: “ _Tea_.”

She expects him to become either flustered or offended, but to her surprise, he bursts into laughter.

“Me too,” he says, grinning, “So why don't we have ourselves a good old-fashioned gay tea party,” and Eva does some very quick erasing of her mental maths.

She has to repeat the exercise several times over the course of the afternoon. He truly has made an effort with the tea, having acquired scones and clotted cream and all the fripperies, including, to her amusement, the purchase of the chipped pink Aynsley set that's been languishing in the charity shop for the last eight months. Mr. Smith is admittedly a charming conversationalist, but it doesn't take her long to notice that much of that charm is in his subtle steering-away from questions about himself, making him seem far more interested in her boring life than anyone in their right mind should be. He's well-spoken, quick to laugh, and jokes about his disabilities with apparent ease, though she doesn't think he's very well educated, if at all; he catches almost none of the basic references she scatters, first by habit, and then increasingly as tests. By the time she leaves, Eva's not sure she knows much more about him than she did when she arrived, except for the perfectly obvious fact that he is very, very lonely.

“Come by anytime,” he offers, when he sees her out like a gentleman, and she can see the effort it takes for him to add, “Bring the kids if, y'know. You don't have much of a yard up there and if they wanna run around—”

“Very kind of you,” Eva assures him, and decides then and there that she's going to do exactly that, because there are two kinds of people in the world, in her experience: those who need the gift of dreadful small children invading their lives, and those who can do without.

 

☆

 

### November 2015

“I'm serious,” Eva says, venting all of her frustration into the dough shuggoth taking over half of Gertie's counter, “Have you noticed anything odd about him?”

“Not particularly,” says Gertie. “All I can say is that he's a very polite young man, and—well, you know how Jakob and I are. It's not as though we really _know_ him. I mean, for heaven's sake, it took us about two years to warm up to _you_ , and you're about the most relentlessly lovely human being from here to Brighton.” Eva flushes. “Relax, dear, it's been kneaded enough. You're going to put your back out.”

“I just don't understand it.” Eva collapses into the nearest chair, scrubbing a hand through her hair, only remembering when it's too late that she's coated in oil and flour to the wrists. “He soaks up attention like a sponge, but he's so _cagey_ about himself. It's as though he desperately wants to be friends but he's afraid of anyone getting close to him.”

(“You two should get along like a house a-fire, then,” says Gertie, _sotto voce_ , which Eva won't register until much, much later.)

“And, god! The gaps, Gert, I can't fathom it! The only musicians he knows are from the twenties, it seems like. He knows more about poisons than Lord Peter. I've caught him muttering to himself in at least four languages, three of which I didn't recognize, but he spooked when I made a joke in German. And—you'll never believe this—he doesn't know who _Shakespeare_ is.”

“It could be worse—he could be a Baconian.” Eva makes a face at her, but Gertie just shrugs, hefting the shuggoth back into its bowl and draping a tea towel over it. “I received an excellent public school education, but when I walked out of Ravensbruck, I didn't know who Shakespeare was either. Perhaps his situation is a bit like that.”

Eva winces. Gertie doesn't often allude to her incarceration—which, Eva knows, wasn't anything to do with her being Jewish, since she didn't convert until her 40's, long after she married Jakob, but had rather more to do with helping her parents hide several escaped Todt workers in their Jersey basement—so when she does it's a mortal blow. Eva doesn't think Gertie intends it to hurt Eva, or even to remind her to be careful; it's more like dropping a bomb, shaking up her assumptions. Gertie knows only too well that Eva's no stranger to the ways in which the world can fail to be safe or kind.

“I can't see how,” Eva says quietly. “There's nothing military about him in the slightest, and that's really the only way to—to have that sort of experience, these days, isn't it?”

“There's always war correspondents—though it doesn't seem to fit, considering everything else you've said.”

“I ask,” Eva says, “Because two days ago he had a whomping great panic attack from which I'm fairly sure he's _still_ recovering.”

“What triggered it?”

“I don't know. I don't think _he_ knows. I just—I don't know what to do.”

“He's your friend, Eva,” Gertie chides gently. “Talk to him.”

“Yes; _how_? 'Oh, since I couldn't help wondering at your being a complete basket case, Mr. Smith, would you mind terribly if I asked whether you've experienced the pleasures of a Circassian riding whip?' That'll go over well.” She goes to tug her hair again and stops just in time, wryly accepting the strip of kitchen towel Gertie hands over. “And it's not as though I can invite him round for dinner without being incredibly awkward, either, because of that damn tube.” Eva sighs. “I'm sorry to harp on about it, but you know me, Gert, I can't abide a mystery.”

“Are we still on for the Tide of Light tomorrow night?”

Eva squints at the subject change. “Of course.”

“Then invite him along!” Gertie cries. “He gets out of that drafty little cottage and Jakob and I can get a look at the man without peering over the hedge like Hyacinth Bucket! Sometimes I wonder about you, child.”

Eva does, and a great time is had by all. In fact, Eva isn't sure a better time has ever been had by anyone than by Mr. Smith—who has somehow become _Jay_ , by the time she drops him off at the cottage, exhausted but glowing. It's as though she's acquired a fifth child for the evening, though her own brood take up the job more thoroughly. They figure out almost immediately that he doesn't have the stamina to keep up with them if they run too far ahead, so they swarm round him and escort him from lightshow to lightshow, stall to stall, while Eva follows at a more sedate pace, lending her elbow to Gertie so Jakob can flirt with Tabby. Benj and Lily fight over who gets to hold Jay's only hand; he beams at them and the sights and the whole _world_ , frankly, like every bit of it has been brought to life for his sole appreciation. Eva hadn't realized how reserved his smiles were, how rationed, until he transforms into this luminous creature in front of her very eyes. It hurts places inside her she thought had scabbed over long ago.

Gertie, the insufferable old hen, shoots Eva significant looks all evening.

Still: “So what did you think?” Eva is forced to ask over single malt, later that night, while Tabby is heroically preventing Benj from escaping his bath.

“He is very pretty,” says Jakob, mock-darkly. Gertie pretends to knock his kippah off.

“I think it doesn't matter,” Gertie says. “Whatever happened to that poor boy—and I suspect it was terrible—it's none of our business. What he really needs is...” She stops. “Has he mentioned his family? Relations? Friends? Anything?”

Eva shakes her head.

“Then that's what we'll be,” Gertie says firmly.

“My sister used to say always—” Jakob says something in Yiddish. “ 'Life is with people.' God says it is not good for man to be alone. But God does not say with how _many_ people! This will be good for him. A little family. It is good.”

There's a splash down the hall, and a “Whoop!” as Tabby, from the sounds of it, narrowly avoids an Archimedes moment.

“Well,” says Eva, propping her cheek on her hand, “At least he'll never be bored.”

 

☆

 

### December 2015

“I'm so sorry, Eves,” is the first thing Tabby says when Eva reaches her bedside. Someone's given her a cheap, plasticy, off-white scarf that makes her look even more wan and grey than she already should, post-surgery and sans appendix. Eva sits down hard and clasps the hand that isn't decorated with an IV.

“How very dare you,” Eva tries to say dangerously, but it comes out a good deal more wobbly than she'd like. “Don't you dare apologize to me, Tabibah. A little birdie told me you coded on the way to A&E, you absolute cow. I thought—”

“But the exams!”

“It was fine,” Eva says, “I rang Jay, I got to work on time, he looked after the gremlins,” and for someone already laying down Tabby does an excellent impression of collapsing in relief.

After a moment she blinks and says: “Wait. Jay? _Our_ Jay?”

“Do we know another Jay?” Eva asks. “He had a leash on Lil and Benj through the morning and then walked them over to pick up Chaz and Art. Fed and watered them. Nobody died.” She pauses. “Well. Possibly Jay, a little; he's tuckered out. And Benj did his makeup.”

Tabby laughs and then immediately groans. Eva squeezes her hand. “Oh, mercy. Please tell me there's evidence.”

Eva pulls out her phone and brings up the one Jay sent. She'd made the mistake of checking her messages during the whole ten minutes she'd been given for lunch and had nearly needed to explain to her students that she was late because her _de facto_ brother had asphyxiated her. In it, Lily and Benj have their cheeks smushed against Jay's, all of them wearing eyeshadow that predicts Benj's future success in either modern art or the Drag Race; Jay and Benj are making fish lips and Lily looks like she's about to do a murder. Tabby giggles until she wheezes, but no nurses come storming in to tell them off, so Eva supposes that's all right.

“Mum came by a little while ago,” Tabby says, once she's pulled herself together. “We—we had a little talk.”

“Was this before or after she graded your surgeon on his technique?” Noor Alawadi operates on knees, not abdomens, but historically that's never stopped her from back-seat medicine.

“After,” Tabby admits. “But—well, after a lot of shouting about luck and second chances and that sort of thing, she asked me if I was happy. You know, _really_ happy. And I said, of course! I have the best job in the world, and I'm excited to wake up in the mornings, and I get to see my best mate every day. How many people can say that, after all? _Subhanallah_! And I said that it hadn't, but if my life _had_ flashed before my eyes it would've been all highlight reel. I haven't any regrets. And she said: You're lying.”

“That's, that's awfully deep talk,” Eva says quietly, suspecting—not hoping, damn her, don't hope, don't, _don't—_ where all this might be heading; “Awfully deep, for a weekday morning chat.”

Tabby lays her hand palm-up on the sheets and says, “I'm not imagining things, am I, Eves?”

Eva has to swallow three times before she thinks she can manage speech. “No,” she croaks, staring at Tabby's long, strong fingers, the bruise on her wrist from where she'd collapsed on the kitchen floor just after saying, casually, _Gosh that hurts_. “No, I—”

“Eva.”

 _Oh, hell. Kim, darling, I'm sorry. How you'd laugh if you could see me fumbling about now_.

Eva breathes out slowly, through pursed lips, and places her hand on Tabby's. Tabby squeezes it hard, as though Eva is the one who had the near-death experience, as though she's the one who needs comforting.

“I know you're still mourning,” Tabby says. “I'd never presume to—to take that away from you before you're ready. But I thought you ought to know that—oh, Eva! Don't cry!”

“I am a fool / To weep at what I am glad of,” Eva whispers, and Tabby's smile is bright enough to light up the whole ward. Eva brings Tabby's hand to her mouth. Against those wonderful fingers she says, “I learned a valuable lesson this morning, you know, from our Jay. About facing your fears.”

“Did you really?”

“I'm never going to be ready,” Eva says. “So—why not now?”

 

☆

 

Cleaning was a damn sight easier before children, Eva muses, as she navigates the obstacle course currently masquerading as Charlie and Arthur's bedroom. Normally she has the older boys look after their own territory, these days, but Tabby's having a difficult time with the entire concept of bed-rest and Eva needs something to do that isn't compulsively reorganizing the Christmas tree ornaments in descending order of glitter distribution, so thus: the hoovering. An action figure narrowly escapes an uncertain fate, only to sacrifice its companion, unseen under the limp duvet, to the jaws of death. The Dyson makes a noise like Nell beneath the paving-stone.

“Worse and worse, as the parrot said to the Yorkshireman,” Eva mutters.

When she turns to shut the banshee off, she nearly has a heart attack. Arthur is stood in the doorway, wide-eyed, pointing mutely at her like the Ghost of Cheerios Past. She resists the impulse to clutch her chest, and realizes that he's only waving, trying to get her attention.

“Mum?” he asks, when the room goes quiet.

“Yup?”

Arthur, fiddling with his thumbnail, makes a face at the floor and says, grudgingly, like she's had to weasel it out of him, “What's wrong with Jay?”

 _Would you prefer it alphabetically or chronologically?_ Eva thinks uncharitably, and pinches herself for it. After that, it takes a moment to rally her internal troops, which all seem to be pulling what Eva's PhD supervisor used to call her Duck With One Foot Nailed To The Floor trick: turning circles round the point, quacking. Arthur doesn't look like he's in danger of actually doing damage to his thumbnail, so she gives herself another second to think.

“Precision in all things, Artful,” Eva says at last. “Define 'wrong'.”

“I went to the toilet yesterday and when I came out he was in the kitchen with his shirt rolled up,” Arthur says. “He had a _tube_ going into his _stomach_. He was pouring baby mash or something into it.” Quick as machine-gun fire: “Does it hurt? Why's he have it? Why can he drink stuff but not eat stuff? Don't his teeth work? Does it _really_ go into his stomach? Is it because he's allergic to food? Why—”

“I don't know,” Eva says. “We've never talked about it. Didn't you ask him?”

Arthur shakes his head. “He didn't see me and...” He trails off and looks at the floor again.

“And?”

He scowls. “People laugh when I ask questions.”

 _Oh, Artful_. “Well, they shouldn't. It's rude. Besides, there's certain things adults aren't supposed to ask questions about, but children have special license. And Jay wouldn't laugh at you, I'm sure.”

“Okay,” he says, and scurries off.

Eva applies herself to rescuing what turns out to be Luke Skywalker from the carpet attachment, and doesn't think much of it until Twelfth Night, when Art insists on taking Jay a jug of the wassail he'd help make—really help, as opposed to previous years, when 'help' had consisted of being lifted so he could drop the cinnamon sticks into the saucepan. Halfway there, Eva realizes she's forgotten the books she'd promised to bring Jay, and dashes back to fetch them. Upon her return, she stops dead in the hall outside the sitting room when she hears Arthur ask: “Why d'you have a hole in your stomach?”

“Uh,” Jay says, and Eva can't hear what Arthur mumbles, but Jay says quickly: “I ain't about to lie to you, Art, it's just. It's not a very nice story.”

“Neither's _Goodnight Mister Tom_ and we have to read that in _school_.”

“Fair point, kiddo. Okay.” There's a rustle and a long pause. “I dunno, you might be too young, but do you remember a thing on the news a while back about a young lady who got kidnapped?”

“Uh huh,” Arthur says. “She escaped with her baby and wrote a book. I read it in the library.”

Eva presses her hand to her mouth. _Oh Jesus, Art_.

“What'd you think?”

“She was very brave,” Arthur says gravely.

Jay sighs. “Yeah, see, not everybody thinks that. Loads of people wondered why she didn't escape sooner. Because it took her so long, some people think she must've liked what that guy was doing to her.”

“But she was really scared! And he was telling her all those bonkers things about how her mum and dad weren't even looking for her!”

“That's right. And she was trying to survive—if she'd botched her escape she might've got hurt, or worse. Anyway, I'm glad you think that way, 'cause something similar happened to me.”

Arthur whispers something.

“No,” Jay says. “I was in there a lot of years, though, and it was pretty bad. You know how my voice is all f—messed up?”

“I like your voice.”

“That's real nice of you to say, Art. Thanks. Well, that and the tube's on account of how one time he made me drink acid.”

Arthur says something in response, but Eva doesn't hear him over the sudden roar of blood in her ears. She tiptoes outside and crouches down under the rhodies and breathes and breathes, fighting nausea, feeling agonizedly as she did when she first saw Lily and Benjamin in their glass boxes, bristling with tubes, the rage that had banked up lionhearted inside her and snarled _How dare God make anything suffer like this_.

She thinks that she was able to escape without detection, and she also thinks she's successfully pulled up her metaphorical drawers by the time she opens the door and calls, “Let's go, Artful, or Lil's liable to set the cat on fire,” but she's clearly not as skilful at espionage as she thinks she is, because Jay calls her that night, two minutes after he knows the children are in bed and her mobile automatically switches to vibrate.

“It's okay,” he says, instead of _hello_. “What you overheard—it's okay. I know you didn't mean to.” Eva can't think of a single response, and after a moment he adds, “I don't really, uh. Have much experience with kids. I guess I probably said too much. I'm sorry. Do you think it'll be a problem?”

“A problem?” she repeats dumbly.

“Yeah. D'you think he's going to tell Chaz and the rest—give them nightmares or something? Should we, I dunno, head it off at the pass?”

“I—I suppose,” Eva says, and then helpless to stop herself: “ _Jay_.”

“Aww hell, Eva, don't. It happened a long time ago. I wasn't—the kids never asked, so I figured you'd said something ages ago and I wasn't expecting it. I got my cover story I'm supposed to stick to and all. Just—been so long since I had to use it. Nobody asks, here.”

“You are in _England_ , remember,” Eva manages, and he laughs. “But—oh, Jay. _Acid_?”

“Sweetheart,” he says wearily, “Don't you get hung up on that. If all that happened was the shit they did to _me_ , I'd die a happy man. It's the—collateral damage that, y'know. Keeps me up at night.” She hears a thump, like he's hit something. “Fuck. Ignore me. Running my mouth like a fucking parrot.”

Eva wants to ask a thousand questions, beginning with _Are you in witness protection?_ and ending somewhere around _Were you in the mob? Does the American mafia even_ exist _any more?_ The reason she doesn't, more than any real sense of tact, is that she doesn't think he's noticed that it'd been “he,” and now it's “ _they_ ,” and Eva really, truly doesn't want to think about the possible reasons behind that for a millisecond longer than she has to.

“We—” It cracks. She tries again. “We can talk to them. Certainly. If you, ah—well. _Like_ doesn't seem quite the right word, does it?”

“No,” he says, “But in my experience life's all about figuring out how to reward yourself for the stuff you don't wanna do. Speaking of which, I discovered the other day I can eat ice cream, sort of. How about I bring a big tub of it over tomorrow morning and we can positive-reinforcement our way through this steaming pile of horse shit?”

“That sounds perfectly ghastly,” says Eva. “Bring two.”

 

☆

 

### March 2016

Eva's enjoying Tabby's uncharacteristically impassioned rant about masjid drama on their late-night stroll—uncharacteristic both because there isn't any, usually, and because Tabby's not typically the sort who notices—when Tabby suddenly stops, points at a light hovering near the front of the Carter property, and says, “Is that _Jay_?”

Improbably, given that his usual bedtime sometimes prefaces her offspring's, it is. He's huddled on the bench in what Eva immediately recognizes as Jakob's moth-eaten Burberry, which she can only identify thanks to the hurricane lamp on the seat beside him. She can't tell for sure, but she thinks he might've been dozing before they approached, because his head snaps up when Tabby misses the grass and crunches gravel under her right wellie.

“What on earth are you doing out here at this hour?” Eva asks. Low-angled lamplight isn't flattering on anyone, but he looks as tired and skeletal tonight as he did when they first met. His failed attempt to smile convinces her; Eva moves the lantern and and sits down, Tabby taking a seat on his other side. He seems overwhelmed for a moment before he relaxes and lets them put their arms around his shoulders.

“I was hoping that—well, it's stupid,” he says. “Stupid and a long-shot and I'm pretty sure I fucked it up—'scuse me, Tabby.”

“What did you do?” Eva says.

“Sent a message to a friend. But I think I left too much to the imagination.”

Eva looks at Tabby and sees an approximation of what she's thinking. _Friend? Jay has a friend? Friend for Jay!_

“Can't you just sent another message?” Tabby asks.

“It's complicated,” Jay says. “And, uh, when I say _friend_...”

Ye giddy gods. “What's his name?”

Eva has heard Jay say a lot of things in a lot of different tones, in that crank-engine voice of his, but she's never heard him say anything as low and warmly as he says, smiling at his lap, “Steve.”

“Come along, Casanova, you can't leave it at that,” Eva pleads. “Is he American too? Is he tall? Is he handsome?”

Jay blinks at her. “I—guess so? Yeah. He's tall. And American. Blonde, blue eyes.”

Eva gets caught up in pretending to fan herself, but her better half, thankfully, catches the subtext.

“And you can't talk to him normally because of the...” Tabby makes a limp-wristed circle in the air. “The thing?”

“Yeah. Could put us both in a lot of danger.” He sighs gustily. “Guess I'll just have to wait.”

“What was so special about tonight?”

“S'my birthday,” he says shyly, and Eva and Tabby both squawk.

“Why didn't you say anything?”

“If we'd known we would have—”

“How old are you?”

“No idea,” Jay says, and Tabby shoots Eva a horrified look.

“You,” Eva says, “Are coming with us,” and what follows would amount to a kidnapping if Jay had put up any struggle at all. They watch old films until all of them fall asleep around four in the morning, draped over one another on the sofa, and Eva has to drag her sorry self through work the next day, but it's Friday and it hardly matters, not when she'd been able to watch sadness tangibly sloughing off of someone like dead skin.

(She intends to give this Steve chap a piece of her mind, if he ever shows up, but when he finally does—well, she can't, can she, not after she sees the way they look at each other in the kitchen, while their oddly-familiar-looking friend crawls halfway inside the Aga and hums to himself. Eva likes to think of herself as a very affectionate person, but she almost feels ashamed, watching them; she has to turn away. She hadn't known it could be so visible, the feeling as though another person is one of your vital organs. Is she lucky enough to look like that when she looks at Tabby, she wonders, or did she long ago when Kim—)

 

☆

 

### June 2016

Eva expects that it'll take her a while to warm up to Gladys, odd duck that she is, but Eva's never made a friend so quickly in all her life. She supposes it helps that the children are besotted with her. Jay's evasiveness should probably concern Eva more—the conspicuous pause when he'd said, unprompted, “She's my, uh...aunt,” and looked at the floor—but Gertie and Jakob scarcely blink before adopting Gladys into their deed-poll family, and Tabby's thrilled to meet someone who thinks small children are half again as magical as she does, so it's a foregone conclusion, really, even if Eva didn't immediately feel as though she's met the oddly ageless reincarnation of one of her school chums. Under that affectless, somewhat intimidating exterior lives an impish, playful soul.

Eva isn't quite sure how Gladys manages it, but she brings them all out of their shells, even those who were sure they weren't living in one. Gertie and Jakob especially transform. Only a few weeks after Gladys's arrival, Gertie announces the inaugural meeting of the Sussex County Ladies' Theology and Subversive Literature Club.

“Gert,” Eva points out, “Is theology even the right word? All of our religious beliefs—or lack thereof—are a bit different from what they teach down at St. Thingy's. And two of us aren't even women.”

Jakob rolls his eyes. Jay says something tart in what sounds like Spanish, and then looks contrite. “Wouldn't be the first time I've been an honorary lady. You wanna put me in a dress, I'm game.”

“No dresses required,” says Gertie, “Though I've been meaning to mention for a while that I think you'd look very sharp in a Utilikilt, dear.” To Eva: “We could change it to _Philosophy_ , if you'd like.”

“No, it's perfect,” Tabby says. “This way we can pretend to be safely C of E if Big Brother ever pops up at Bognor Regis.”

“If we're talking Big Brother, the _Subversive Literature_ part might be more worrisome,” Eva says dubiously.

“I'm sure I've a hardback of _The Downing Street Years_ laying around somewhere, if needs must,” Gertie says, to general shuddering.

As the meeting opens, as Gladys and Gertie begin to bicker about Continental politics in French, as Lily climbs into Jay's lap with a dog-eared copy of _The Forest Giant_ , as Jakob fills Tabby's teacup and the boys play tug-of-war with Tobermory in the hall, Eva thinks to herself: _I'm happy; I'm so happy_. When did that happen? When did it creep up on her? How can she hold onto it? How can she keep it from slipping through her fingers?

She doesn't have to, she decides, astonished—and jumps into the fray.

 

☆

 

### CODA: October 2017

“Fuck me sideways,” Eva says, and shoves her whole thumb in her mouth.

“Yeah, they're vicious bastards,” Jay says absently, from where he's absorbed in picking out every tiny furl of nettle root from under the allium.

“I'm not anthropomorphizing the gorse, I'm blaming you for planting it. Cocking hell, this is deep.”

“Let me see.” Jay straightens his spine without looking and gets smacked in the face with a flower. He knee-walks over and turns her hand gently with his carbon-fibre fingertips. Apeing her: “And what _would_ your children think of your language?”

“Lil's already won five quid off me this week for it, so she's not complaining,” Eva says. “Ouch! Well, Doctor, will I live?”

“You'll never be the same. We got a home for old soldiers like— _ow_!”

“Misery loves company,” says Eva, triumphantly. Jay rubs his ankle and glares at her. “Why _did_ you plant it, anyway?”

He points a thumb at the fields. “Farm collies kept getting through the holes in the fence and bullying Miss Havisham.” That worthy, hearing his name, gives a longsuffering huff and thumps his tail once. “Haven't seen 'em since I installed this shit.”

“I continue to find your problem-solving tactics enterprising yet worrisome,” Eva says, inspecting her thumb. “Damn. I should probably put a plaster on this.”

“Wash it good,” Jay advises, “You don't wanna end up like that woman in Kent who got the necrotising whatchamacallit,” and Eva pulls a face as she stands up and staggers comically towards the house, holding her hand away from her body. Behind her she can hear him laughing.

When she comes back, some ten minutes later, Jay has evidently decided to give up on the nettles, since he's stretched out next to the dog with his hands behind his head. Looking at what, she can't imagine; the sky isn't doing anything interesting. She doesn't think there will ever come a better time than this to spring it on him, and sits down next to him. Miss Havisham rolls over and demands that his belly be scratched, an order Eva's happy to fulfil.

“So Tabby and I are getting married,” she informs the dog.

She expects Jay to react strongly, but it's with more exasperation than surprise that he says, “About time.”

Eva makes a strangled noise. “I thought we were being so careful!”

“You _thought_ ,” Jay says. He grins up at her offence. “As it happens, I'm an expert at the kinda faces people make when they're trying to pretend they aren't head over heels. Sorry, Blackpool. Steve n' me started making bets in about April.” He reaches out for her hand. “Seriously, congrats. I'm real happy for you two. When's the date?”

“Well,” she sighs, “We were thinking March.” _Now_ he looks surprised. “We thought it would be lovely if Steve could be your plus-one, and if it's near your birthday he won't have to make two trips. If you think he'd like to come, of course.”

“That's—you'd do that?”

“It's not as though it's any sort of _imposition_. There's nothing wrong with a spring wedding.”

“So long as it's indoors,” Jay says. “I—yeah. Jesus. Of course he'll wanna come. That's real sweet of you guys.” He sits up suddenly. “Did you—were you thinking of the garden, or—”

“Sadly, no,” Eva says. “Marriage laws in this country are hopelessly antediluvian. It's a licensed venue or nothing, I'm afraid. We're thinking the Worthing Town Hall.”

“Probably for the best,” he admits, looking at the cottage.

“And I was wondering...” Eva bites her lip and says, very quickly, “Please don't feel as though you have to say yes! But I was wondering whether you wouldn't mind being my Best Person.”

He whips his head around to stare at her, looking as though she's just slapped him in the face with a glove and challenged him to a duel.

“ _Me_?” he says, after several moments. “I—but you got—won't your family get first dibs on,” and he doesn't stop so much as skid. About seventeen emotions run across his face before he decides on disgusted. “Oh, hell. Eva—really?”

Eva shrugs. “My brother and I made the critical error of coming out to them at the same time. We thought it might make things easier for everyone. By autumn, Johnnie'd killed himself and I was reading for the English Tripos at King's, which amounted to about the same thing. They don't even know I'm in Sussex.”

“Jesus fuck,” Jay says. “But I thought the kids, and your ma...”

“Their gran?” Eva shakes her head. “She's my—” Damn. Why is it so easy to talk about Johnnie and still so hard to talk about _her_? “My mother-in-law. From my first marriage. I, ah. Moved down here to be closer to her. After.”

Jay is quiet for a very long time; they both pat Miss Havisham in silence. Finally he leans across the dog and tugs her into a great whallop of a hug. Eva leans into it gratefully. Miss Havisham grunts but doesn't bother to extricate himself.

“You miss them? Your folks?”

“No.” It's not quite a lie and not quite the truth, either; there isn't a word for it in the whole bloody English language. Or any other, she suspects. As universal as it must be.

“Fuck 'em,” Jay says. “They don't deserve you.”

“I don't need them,” Eva says, pretending she believes it. After a moment, she feels a lightness banking up inside her; the possibility that she could. “After all,” she says, a little stronger, “I have Ang and Noor and Ibrahim and Gertie and Jakob and Gladys—and you. That's more family than many people are lucky enough to have. And you'll be there, won't you? Wedding party or not?”

Jay gives her a hard squeeze before he lets her go.

“You couldn't keep me from being your Best Person,” he says.

“Don't say yes just because I've gone all maudlin,” Eva protests.

Jay grabs her shoulders and holds her at arm's length. “Eva,” he says. “You're a lot of things, but you ain't stupid.” She tries to smile. “But you're gonna have to explain what a Best Person's supposed to do, sweetheart, because I don't have the first fucking clue.”

“Easy,” says Eva. She wipes her nose on her sleeve. “Stand around and look pretty.”

“I guess I can manage that,” Jay says, deadpan. Then: “But are you sure you wouldn't rather have _Steve_?” and what do you know: she _can_ laugh, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Although I've had this thing viciously Brit-picked by one of my expat aunts, both of us suffer from the unfortunate condition of Never Having Lived Anywhere Near The South Downs, so if I've left any howlers intact please do let me know.
> 
> Two more ficlets to go! Thanks for reading! <3


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